DON’T BE IN A HURRY

 

                DON’T BE IN A HURRY               

            Don’t be in a hurry; nature does not allow it. Moreover, there is no reason to act at an abnormal speed. A heart with faster beats puts life at risk. Speediness for development is not a valid excuse. Development is part of evolution which will never end. It will continue for billions of years to come  but at its own natural speed.

            There is no justification for working restlessly, sacrificing relaxation, spending sleepless nights, inviting stress, visiting doctors for anti-anxiety medicines.

            The Indian writer, political thinker and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) prayed for a free India from the British rule where the mind could be fearless and the head could be held high. A hasty life lacks these qualities.

            Toda’s restless humanity is suffering from insomnia. Sleep-inducing medicines are much in demand everywhere.

            The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) said: The end of labour is to gain leisure.

            According to the English divine Robert South (1634-1716) : Days of respite are golden days.

            The English novelist and poet  George Eliot (1819-1880) wrote somewhere: Leisure is gone; gone where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow wagons, and the peddlers who brought bargains to the door on sunny afternoons.

            Today there is a demand for fastest means of travel. People want instant coffee and quickest means of communication.

            Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath Pythagoras (born around 570 BC) regretfully said :  In this theater of man’s life, it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on).

            The English poet William Henry Davies (1871-1940) said that “ one of  the most disastrous effects of industrial  civilization has been the sense of hurry it has given to modern man.: In his poem titled “LEISURE” he asks:

            What is this life if, full of care,

            We have no time to stand  and stare?

            No time to stand beneath the boughs

            And stare as long as sheep or cows:

            No time to see, when woods we pass,

            Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

            No time to see, in broad daylight,

            Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

            No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

            And watch her feet, how they can dance:

            No time to wait till her mouth can

            Enrich that smile her eyes began?    

 

Davies closes this poem with the following two lines:

 

            A poor life this if, full of care,

            We have no time to stand and stare.

                                                ********

G.R.Kanwal

11 March 2026